


as small as a world

by umisabaku



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, M/M, Snipers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 20:20:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15469272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/umisabaku/pseuds/umisabaku
Summary: In the spy business, you can never be too sure who your enemies really are.





	as small as a world

 “ _What is the smallest thing you can imagine?”_

_“I guess… the world. There’s nothing smaller than the world.”_

Midorima Shintarou takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. Next to him is Takao Kazunari, whose pattern of breathing is as familiar to him as his own. Slowly, it’s like a trance—they breathe the same rhythms in and out like matching tides in the sea.

“Steady, Shin-chan, not yet,” Takao murmurs, and his voice is the only thing Midorima can hear in times like this.

When he’s looking through the scope of a gun it’s like everything shrinks. There’s just the person in the lens, the gun, and Takao. Even Midorima’s own sense of self disappears. This is the whole of his world, and it’s the smallest unit imaginable: target, weapon, Takao.

“Now,” Takao says, and Midorima fires.

*

_“What is the largest thing you can imagine?”_

_“Loneliness. There is nothing so vast as loneliness.”_

Kise Ryouta wonders why some people care so much about others.

Caring is the one thing that never came easy to him. He spent a lifetime looking after himself and only himself. Other people were simply tools, or minor players in the grand play that is his life.

And here is this man—Kasamatsu Yukio, an agent serving his country with the kind of loyalty you only read about in fiction. This man, who cares so much about everything and everyone, even people he doesn’t even know. It’s ridiculous. It is, Kise thinks, almost contemptible. Men who care so much about other people only lose in the long run.

And here is a moment: a decision, a second that stretches on for eternity. And Kise has to think, _what is it that I care about?_

*

When they were in the army together, everyone said, _what kind of sniper needs glasses?_ And they told him he couldn’t do his job.

But Midorima was the best, then and now—there’s not a shot he can’t take and no distance too daunting. He’s an impossible sharpshooter—a miracle.

And he doesn’t need eyes.

He has Takao.

*

Kise isn’t exactly a patriot so much as a reluctant asset for his nation.

Once upon a time, they called him the Man of a Thousand Faces, because he no one could ever recognize him in one of his disguises. Other names included: Jack of All Trades, the Copy Cat, Mr. Miracle. (Some of these names, Kise reflects, were definitely better than others.) He was a thief, a hacker, a spy-for-hire. As the proverbial master of disguise, he could be anyone. Everything came easy to him. He was the best at everything he did.

But even the best make mistakes, and even the best get caught.

Now he’s serving his country as an alternative to prison. Now he has a handler, Kasamatsu Yukio, and he’s never alone.

*

“I’ll be your spotter,” Takao said then, and when they were army it was a necessity that Midorima never liked. To put so much trust in one person, to put all his faith in someone else’s eyes, someone else’s measure of the wind, the distance, the target, that wasn’t something he thought he could ever do.

But Takao got him out alive. Got so many men out alive. They went through a war together at each other’s side and they’ve been at each other’s side ever since.

*

“Why do you do this?” Kise once asked. “This is such a terrible life.”

“It is an honor to serve my country,” Kasamatsu replied, and it was such a stereotypical answer, Kise almost rolled his eyes. Except when someone like Kasamatsu Yukio says something like that, he sounds like he means it. Kasamatsu has a way of making Kise believe in things.

“Don’t you ever want a normal life? A wife, kids?”

“The white picket fence?” Kasamatsu said dryly. “No. I’m better off here, making sure you don’t get in trouble.”

And even though it wasn’t at all what Kasamatsu said, Kise couldn’t help but take that to mean that Kasamatsu was willing to spend the rest of his life with Kise.

*

“It’s a job,” Midorima says, when they first made the transition from military to spywork. “And it’s a job we’re good at.”

 _And we’ll be together,_ he doesn’t say out loud. Because maybe he doesn’t want the wars to end. Maybe he doesn’t want to go back to a normal life, a life without Takao, a life without someone else breathing the same rhythms as him, guarding his back, living in the same small world.

“It’s _a_ job,” Takao says, but not like he agrees. “But, Shin-chan, it’s not the same. What would you do if it’s someone you know on the other side of the lens?”

_As long as it’s not you, why would it matter?_

But Midorima doesn’t say that.

And so they become spies. Still doing the job. Still serving their country, in a way.

Who the enemy is becomes a whole lot more complicated, but he’s never in doubt about who his ally is.

*

“Doesn’t it ever bother you?” Kasamatsu asks, while they’re tracking down someone using Kise’s information from his previous life as a criminal. “That we’re putting away people you used to work with?”

“Not particularly,” Kise says with a grin that’s like the baring of teeth. “Better him than me.”

“But he was your friend, wasn’t he?”

“Of course not,” Kise snorts. “I didn’t have friends, not in my line of work. Trust me, Senpai, there’s not a single person from my old life I wouldn’t toss the wolves if I had to.”

The “senpai” is his own private joke, since Kasamatsu is his senior in the agency. Since Kasamatsu is the kind of person who demands respect, he never seems to mind the endearment, even if Kise is not, technically, a junior employee. Kise does not have the same right of being a kouhai that the junior agents do, but he’s someone Kasamatsu is guiding nonetheless.

Kasamatsu just snorts. “What I’m gathering is that you would turn on anyone to save yourself.”

“Everyone does what it takes to survive,” Kise says, with a shrug that he doesn’t mean. Part of him wants to say, _I would never turn on you,_ but it’s ridiculous. They’re not on the same side. Kise would leave Kasamatsu behind if he had to save himself.

(He’s at least, eighty percent sure that he would. Kise is a criminal. Kasamatsu is the law. They’re temporary allies until Kise has the chance to run. Seventy-five percent sure, at any rate.)

*

Midorima isn’t the kind of person to question orders, but Takao is.

“It’s… a little weird, don’t you think?” Takao ventures. “This guy has a spotless record. He’s got medals of commendation and all that crap. He doesn’t strike me as the type.”

“Do they ever?” Midorima hedges. There’s something that bothers him about this mission. Maybe it’s the target, but maybe it’s also who he’s handling.

“Well, actually, yeah. Oddly enough, a fair amount of people who seem like sleazebags end up being traitors to their country. This guy—he seems honest.”

They’ve worked together so long that it’s almost like they can read each other’s minds. So, even though Takao is the one who is pointing out that something seems wrong, it’s Takao who asks, “What? What is it? Something’s bugging you.”

“His asset,” Midorima says, speaking very carefully. “I knew him, once upon a time.”

“The criminal? Kise Ryouta?”

Midorima nods once.

“How do _you_ know a renowned criminal?”

“I had a life before the army,” Midorima says, and then feels guilty, because it’s another way of saying, _I had a life before you_ , and that’s not what he means.

Takao tilts his head, but if he’s hurt by the statement, he doesn’t show it. “So. Good guy?”

“I wouldn’t necessarily call him a bad guy,” Midorima says, “Despite his criminal inclinations.”

Takao ponders the file they’ve been given. “And either way, we have to kill Kasamatsu Yukio.”

 _We._ Takao’s eyes, Midorima’s gun. They’re in this together, always.

“That’s right,” Midorima says. “Because that’s our job.”

*

“You’ve made lot of enemies, Senpai,” Kise says, and it comes out sounding a bit like how a dog whines when his master is about to venture somewhere that smells like danger. “This whole, determined to be an honest cop thing, it’s going to get you killed.”

Reducing Kasamatsu’s job to _cop_ was actually his invention. _“At heart, that’s what I am. Just a cop putting away bad guys. The stakes are a little higher, but the principle is the same.”_

“Honesty is supposed to be the default when you’re a cop,” Kasamatsu says dryly, but his lips form a grim, stern line, and they both know the world would be a whole lot easier if everyone’s roles determined their natures: criminals, bad, cops, good.

“But, Senpai, you don’t know who to trust,” Kise points out. And it’s not something that needs to be said, exactly, they’re investigating corruption in the agency. There are bad cops out there and they both know it. Kasamatsu is putting a real big target on his back and at some point, someone is going to take the shot. Kise knows he’s pretty much just wasting his breath at this point because Kasamatsu is going to keep pursuing justice no matter what.

And Kise’s not even sure why he _cares_ because this man is law and order and everything Kise has always rebelled against, but part of him wants to say, _We can run away from it all. I still have a mansion on the Cayman Islands. I still have lots of money you don’t know about. We could live comfortable and safe for the rest of our lives._

Kasamatsu’s blue grey eyes meet his and he says, “I trust you.”

Kise has to suck in his breath. He thinks, _Oh. That’s why I care._

No one has ever trusted him before.

This man certainly shouldn’t; not when Kise represents everything he stands against. But if this man has given Kise his trust, then it’s the most valuable thing Kise possesses, even more so than all the treasure he has stolen over the years.

“Alright then, Senpai. Let’s go be stupid and heroic.” And what he means is, _If we can’t run away together to paradise, then I will follow you into hell._

*

When you make a name for yourself killing at a distance, you don’t put too much thought into who is on the other side of the lens. In some ways, Midorima is and always has been rather removed from the death he causes. _War from a distance,_ someone once joked.

Midorima once had a senpai who told him to, “Think about the men you’re saving and not the one you’re shooting.” Because it can get to you, a little bit, to kill someone when they’re completely unaware of the danger they’re in.

That’s perhaps why Midorima doesn’t think about the person at all. Why he reduces his world to such a small thing. Target, gun, Takao. That’s it. That’s what he told Takao so long ago—there’s nothing smaller than a world.

“Something’s wrong,” Takao says.

“It doesn’t matter,” Midorima says fiercely. “We have a job and we do our job.” It doesn’t matter that a long time ago he once called Kise Ryouta a friend and ally. It doesn’t matter that by all appearances, Kasamatsu Yukio is an honest man. It doesn’t matter that Midorima has his own private suspicions about corruption in the agency and maybe the man who gave this order is less than trustworthy.

His world is a small place and it must remain a small place, if he wants it to last.

“Call the shot, Takao.”

“Sure, Shin-chan,” Takao says.

*

Sometimes a single moment can feel like forever.

It’s milliseconds, but somehow Kise has a hundred different thoughts all at once. Like the fact that he knows the sniper is there, aiming at Kasamatsu. Like the fact that there isn’t enough time to call out a warning but there’s enough time to act. Like the fact that he’s never cared about another person before and now would really be the time to cut his losses and head for the hills, and the thought, _What is it that I care about?_ Except that through all these thoughts, his body is already moving.

Kise isn’t even sure he fully processed what is happening. Only that—he knows there is a gun, and it’s pointed and Kasamatsu, and at the other side of a bullet is a certainty that loneliness can stretch on for eternity and Kise doesn’t want to live in a world Kasamatsu is not in.

So he moves.

He puts himself between Kasamatsu and a gun and he has no regrets.

*

“Now,” Takao calls, and Midorima doesn’t even question it, he fires. Because he trusts his spotter to call the right shot.

But then the world seems to tilt sideways and it’s very disorienting. A few things become clear—Kise has put himself in the way of Midorima’s bullet.

And also, that it doesn’t matter that Kise has put himself in the way of Midorima’s bullet, because Midorima missed.

Midorima doesn’t _miss._

The appropriate thing to do is wait for the spotter to make a new call and take another shot, except Midorima pulls back and looks at Takao. Midorima is the gun, but Takao is the shot, and if Midorima missed it’s because Takao made a bad call.

Takao doesn’t make bad calls.

“You didn’t really want to kill him,” Takao shrugs, “And I don’t think we should anyhow. Something’s weird and we need to figure out what.”

Midorima should be furious. He puts his trust in Takao and this is a breach. Except Takao knows him better than he knows himself. He didn’t really want to make the shot.

This changes things—this will have repercussions and it complicates Midorima’s small world. So Midorima does the only thing he can do, and that’s reach forward, grab Takao by the collar, and kiss him soundly.

“Now, Shin-chan? You choose _now_?” Takao says when they break apart, dazed but not surprised.

“It seemed like the right time.” His world is about to change, so he might as well make some changes.

As long as Takao’s still here, it will be fine.

*

“Kise!” Kasamatsu cries out.

“It’s OK, I don’t think I’m dead,” Kise says, and he gets up shakily.

“Get for cover, idiot!” Kasamatsu says, pulling him.

“No, it’s OK, he’s not taking another shot.” Kise looks at where the bullet hit and has a strong suspicion about how the shooter is. “Huh, he must’ve figured he didn’t want to kill us. That probably means he’s on our side.”

“He _who?”_

“An old friend,” Kise says, off-hand.

“Kise,” Kasamatsu says, and he stares at him, frustrated but also maybe in awe. No one has ever looked at him like that before. “You would have died. For me.”

Kise laughs and looks away, feeling awkward and maybe it would have been better if Midorima had just killed him. “Yeah, I guess so.” He shrugs. “It would have been too lonely without you.” Kasamatsu keeps looking at him and Kise just says, “Like I said before—there’s nothing so vast as loneliness.”

And then, because Kise’s already shown all his cards and has nothing left to lose, he pulls Kasamatsu in for a kiss, and is very pleasantly surprised when Kasamatsu returns that kiss.

“OK, well, let’s go find our sniper buddy, I think he can help us track down the corrupt agents,” Kise says, when the kiss ends.

“OK,” Kasamatsu says, a little disoriented but on board. Then, out of nowhere, Kasamatsu says abruptly, “Like the poem.”

“What?”

“There’s a poem, it’s about the ocean. I can’t remember all of it. Just the line, ‘as small as a world and as large as alone.’”

“Yeah,” Kise says. “Like that.”

 

 

  


**Author's Note:**

> The poem referenced in the story (and where the title comes from) is “maggie and milly and molly and may” by e. e. cummings. 
> 
> This was my story for the Limitless Fanzine, and I am very excited to post it now! I was very fortunate to collaborate with the amazing [lautremonde](https://lautremonde.tumblr.com/) who did the amazing accompanying art, helped me brainstorm, AND taught me how to embed pictures in fic. She is all-around a very amazing person!! =D
> 
> Thanks to the Limitless Team, and the readers of this story =)


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